Finally our pics from Up North

We went up north a couple weekends ago to visit Nathan's mom and step dad. Here are pics from the weekend. Nathan took most of the pics, he got some really great shots. These are from our day in Petosky.


I LOVE these especially the one on the light brick.


He LOVED dangling from the monkey bars! He has freakish arm strength. He was almost doing pull ups by himself!


This is one of my favorite shots.




This set is from the St.Ignace side of Lake Michigan.

5 mos - Jonah loves his papa!

I am crankin' em' out!

2 more done! yay me!

Only Months 5-11, birthday party, and various Jonah and pages left to go.

I didn't paper scrapbook anything of his so this will be a pretty big book.

2 more down, like 30 more to go

More SB Pages! I was feeling inspired after viewing Kelly's latest creative masterpieces.

Here's Jonah's 3 month pages.


Oh and I think I will change the last line of the haiku to "my boo from the hood" because these are his gangsta pics yo. I think I might also nudge the big pic more to the left and enlarge the smiley one, cuz I LOVE it.

Sad sick baby

no, that pic is not jonah.

poor Jonah, he is allergic to something in the air. His eyes are all puffy and watery. He sneezes so hard I swear he's going to sneeze out his brain or pop his eardrums. I was home with him yesterday. He's with Grammy and Papa today. We have resorted to using Benadryl with dr. consent!) I know its not the most natural but I don't like to see him suffer.

Will post pics of our weekend up north later.

a new baby in the family...

Jonah has adopted a new baby from Ethiopia. Her name is undecided as yet because both baby and daddy got tired and needed to go to bed. It was so sweet. At first he was not sure he could touch her. I handed him the bottle and asked him to feed the baby and voila! instant daddy! In the bottom picture he is rocking baby to sleep.

I know some might think it's weird that I bought my son a baby but I ask you this- Is it fair that we encourage girls to be good mommy's but not boys to be good daddy's? Is it no wonder that boys aren't as maternal? I'm not saying that giving Jonah a baby doll now is going to make him a good daddy but I think it will teach him more gentleness. I'm not into the whole non-genderizing phenomena that's going on. I think there is a possibility that in our efforts to "un-gender" we will just confuse the natural process of things, but I think the overall idea of balance has some good points.

Take a look at what a good daddy Jonah is. Ok so he did bite the babies hand a little bit but he was gentle for the most part. My boy is a sweetie and I loves him so much!



Um, yes that is Jonah's baby bouncer and yes, the thing almost touches the floor because Jonah is too big for it.

Exhaustion...

I am beat. While nathan was praying for dinner I thought I fell asleep. He's a really short meal prayer too! My kid did me in today. We went shopping after church and the whole time was spent chasing Jonah. He didn't want to be in his stroller or later in the shopping cart or later yet in the beco carrier. He wouldn't stop kissing himself in the mirror of the dressing room (that was funny). Besides kissing himself he wanted to run and terrorize the store. Seriously he was the kid that you watch and just think why can't those parent control him? He wasn't bad just busy busy busy. All I could do was laugh and hurry with my shopping.

On a semi-sad note, we are on the way to packing up the bottles. We purchased more of these sippy's at Burlington today. I always feel weird shopping at Burlington Coat Factory for baby stuff, kinda ghetto. But if you'd seen the Michigan area Burlington's you'd feel the same way. Anyway he calls them ba-ba's and has yet to complain when I give him one instead of his usual bottle. All the other ones have illicited a complaint when he REALLY wanted his ba-ba. I'm not super sad though it's all growth.

Current Odd thing Jonah does - While lying on his back he throws his leg through the bars of his crib. Of course he gets it stuck. This leads to yelling and crying. Of course, this happens either 20-30 minutes after he's been asleep or in the middle of the night/wee hours of the morning. I'm not quite sure what to do. It's not so regular that I need to line his bed with mesh, but if it keeps happening maybe that's my only option.

Current Favorite thing Jonah does - He walks up to me, turns around, then backs into my lap, and sits. I love it.

ok, I am off to BED - SLEEPY Time for this worn out Momma!

Update on a sleeping boy

So the last couple nights Jonah has gone to sleep really easy. We do our bedtime routine - bath, read, pray, song, rock and cuddle for a minute, and then into bed with his blankie and thumb in mouth. Last night I had to go comfort him again about 15 minutes after putting him to bed because he got his leg caught in the bars of his crib (and started screaming), but other than that he was good to go. He's done that a couple times this week. He likes to prop his foot up on the bumper but sometimes I think he gets it too far and his foot goes between the bars of his crib. He turns just a little bit and his leg is stuck, thus the screaming. I'm wondering if I should line his crib with mesh so he can't pop his leg through the bars.

Silly Jonah!

Thursday night at bible study Jonah felt the need to be silly. Showin' off his belly and bein' silly with Mary's glasses.

Our 4th at Crossroads Village

On the 4th of July we went to Crossroads Village. I love going to Crossroads Village, it's so simple and fun. We bought an annual pass so that Jonah could go often this year since it's so close to my parents house. Plus there is also some sentimental value as Nathan and I were married at the chapel at Crossroads.



Watchin' the Parade!


Jonah liked the banjo player. He even got a private concert!


Our Rockin' boy!


Jonah enjoyed riding the "Genesee Belle" paddlewheel boat.

GREAT Grandparents!

Last Monday we visited Great Grandma Azure and Great Grandpa Andrews. Two fun long overdue visits.

Is round a shape?

So I am going now, back to the workout. I was going through my Chicago pics and I found some VERY unflattering pictures. It is time to get back in shape.

So here I go, hitting the road.



UPDATE: Back from the jog/walk, feeling good and accomplished.

To cry or not to cry

Jonah sleeping (5 mos.)

I know Jonah needs to be able to put himself to sleep, but I get so torn about it. When I look back in 10 years and he's embarrassed to even be seen with me or even in 5 years when he's the same size as me, I want to know that I fully took advantage his baby time. Is it so bad if I have to rock him to sleep till he's 3 or 4? (or in all reality until the 2nd one comes, haha!)

Tonight he had a hard time going to sleep. We let him cry for about 10 minutes, but we couldn't let him go on. Some nights he's really easy to get to sleep, but tonight wasn't one of those nights. So Mommy rocked him and enjoyed every second. I am so blessed to have such a sweet boy.

Chicago - Finally!

Here we are waiting for the train, sometimes patiently, sometimes not...



Then on to the Taste of Chicago...it was insane.



Some Fun in the Fountain in Grant Park.



More Fun with "The Bean".



Just 'cuz Mommy thinks he looks so cute in his raincoat!

Chi-town! Well, almost there...

On the way to Chicago we stopped at the Zoo in Michigan City, but before we left for the Zoo Jonah took a shower with Daddy in the outdoor shower at the Tryon House.



Jonah was scared of the bronze bear, not the real bear, but the bronze bear...


Jonah kisses the sad Reptile.
'

Jonah ROARRS like a lion and attacks with his "paw".


Our very own tiger.


Next Post Will be the ACTUAL day in downtown chicago!